


Ash and Sigil

by Hopetohell



Category: Blood Creek (2009), Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, M/M, Smut, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:53:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopetohell/pseuds/Hopetohell
Summary: You die alone, that’s how these things work. Sometimes, though, you meet just the right person at the right time to change your stars.Or: Evan and August go demon hunting.
Relationships: Evan Marshall/August Walker
Kudos: 11





	1. Take You Dancing

**Author's Note:**

> There are a few...liberties taken with the demons.

You die alone. That’s how these things always work, right? And four out of nine isn’t too bad, all things considered. Hell, it’s more than anyone else has ever managed. You should be proud, but all you feel is regret. You should’ve been more careful, should’ve found a better way to mitigate the effects of the poison. 

Should’ve remembered the protection sigil, should’ve carved it new. Because as it turns out, once the scabs fall off it _doesn’t fucking work._

Weber, lucky number four, had holed up in a sweet little seaside town for years and had been smart. Careful. After all, fishing was a dangerous way to earn a living. If someone disappeared once in a while, it was only to be expected. And the number of missing persons reports here was only slightly higher than you’d think. Nothing you’d notice if you weren’t looking. 

You weren’t even supposed to be hunting here. This was supposed to be a vacation, or as close as you ever get. A chance to let your wounds heal, let the poison burn its way out a little. Maybe send a postcard to your nephews. You try to, once in a while, so they won’t worry. 

You wonder, vaguely, if they’ll worry when the postcards stop coming. It’s hard to think, though, with how much blood has left your body. It leaves you light-headed, drifting. Time has lost meaning but you think maybe you’ve been here in this cliffside cave for days. Because Weber, it turns out, likes to _play._ He sips a little here, a little there. Threatens more with hot, rancid breath on the back of your neck. It scared you at first, but now you’re just waiting for it to be over. You hang in your chains, arms pulled from their sockets, drifting in a haze of pain and blood loss. 

Shadows cross your vision, and that makes sense. That’s what happens when your lights go out for the last time. You’re so very tired. It’ll be good to rest, for a while. And when you wake up, you can make pancakes for the boys, take them to that petting zoo in town. Maybe—

That’s not quite right, but you’re too tired to think about it right now. Maybe after you sleep a little you’ll feel better. 

“Hey.” Someone’s there, not Weber for once, but it’s so dark you can’t make him out. “Hey. Come on. We’ve gotta go.” 

And then you’re falling to the ground, shoulders shooting fire through you when your arms drop, but it’s distant. Unimportant. That voice again, irritating. Why won’t he just let you rest?

“Goddammit, come _on._ Am I really gonna have to haul your ass all the way back down this cliff? Come on. Stay with me, ok?” And you’re being lifted, you’re floating. Drifting. Dying. Probably.


	2. You Say That to All the Boys

Death is warm, and soft, and it _aches._ It aches with a subtle undercurrent of fire that wraps over your shoulders and down your back, a mantle woven from everything you’ve done wrong. Death is soft, pillowy comfort below you that smells faintly of dust and stale perfume. Death is an iron bar across your stomach that tightens minutely when you breathe. 

That warm weight on your belly is so good, so secure. It’s been so long since anyone touched you with kindness. You can’t help but tip your hips up, just a little. Just to press against that contact, selfishly, just for the pure pleasure of it. 

_Nothing but your own hand for more than a year, and that’s laced with frustration every time. Leaves you cold. Still better than demons, who are almost but not quite like men, who lick and bite with murder on their breath._

Sound filters in. Cars in the distance. Dripping water. A soft snuffle at the back of your neck. Grumbling. “Quit wiggling. Go back to sleep.”

Funny. You don’t _remember_ going to bed with anyone. You don’t remember going to bed, period. It pulls ice through your veins and you twist in sudden panic, shoulders screaming as you turn to face a total stranger, his mustache and curls sleep-mussed, his voice tumbled stone as he murmurs, “You were screaming in your sleep. Not exactly good for laying low.” A pause, while he considers you as you lie there in the half-dark. “Can you make a fist? Wiggle your toes?” Yes and yes, and in response he drops his head back down, drapes his arm over your waist again. It’s a possessive move, a lover’s move. “It’s three o'clock in the morning. Go the fuck to sleep. You can have a crisis when it’s not the middle of the damn night.”

And you want to panic, can feel that unease crawling up your spine, but it’s derailed by the absentminded press and stroke of fingertips against your skin. And you are _tired,_ aren’t you? Tired and hurt and—

This time, when you sleep, there are no dreams, only a blank space in time. It’s the best sleep you’ve had in years.


	3. The No-Hit Wonder

Your name is Evan Marshall. You are (were) an EMT, and your life is a total fucking disaster. You tell him this over stale coffee brewed in a coffee maker that for some godforsaken reason is in the motel bathroom. It’s disgusting but he drinks it down like he doesn’t care, the scars on his knuckles casting shadows every time he lifts his hand. 

“So, uh, mind telling me who you are, and why I woke up in your bed?” You’re not quite managing to look him in the eye, instead rubbing gently at the bruises on your wrists in between furtive glances at his face. He looks like he went three rounds with a blowtorch at some point, or something, half his face pulled tight and shiny around eyes that gleam with a bitter sort of cruelty. But here you are, reading more into him than you should. He smirks a little, corners of his mustache turning up as he opens his mouth to answer. 

“The name’s Wa—“

And the overhead sprinklers go off. 

It isn’t until hours later, settled in a new room, that you learn his name. August Walker, retired CIA agent. There’s a tiny twist to his lips that suggests the retirement wasn’t entirely amicable. 

“And so you just, what, left? Can you even _do_ that?” You still can’t look at him, not in the eye anyway, and not just because of the scars. You’re still wrapped up in the feeling of a warm arm around your waist, the unassuming pleasure of just being close to someone who’s not actively trying to kill you. It still pulls a soft, warm feeling through you, and that’s a problem. It must just be that nobody’s touched you in so damn long. It’ll pass. 

It’s nice, though, being able to talk about your work with someone who knows. As it turns out, Walker has been hunting the same demon, but got sidetracked when he found you hanging there like a sad little Capri sun. He doesn’t say it, but there’s a thread of annoyance you can read clear as day. _Could’ve had him if it wasn’t for you. Dumb kid._ You realize he’s looking at you like he’s waiting for you to say something. So you mutter something about your notes, and the moment passes. 

Walker looks at your maps, your notes, your dossier on Weber. He pulls out a notebook of his own, and starts translating his ciphers on the fly as you listen and mark up your maps. A plan starts to take shape. Weber is likely still nearby; demons don’t stray far from their hunting grounds if they can help it. And he knows about you, weak and wounded as you are. But he might not know about Walker. 

Looks like you’re playing bait. Again. 

It’s a risk, and a nasty one. The protection sigil on your chest has scarred over, so it can no longer help you. But according to Walker, this is a good thing. Makes you extra appealing as bait. And if anyone’s going to be at risk it’s better that it’s you, right? You have no idea what Walker left behind when he started hunting, but you at least have a responsibility to do this, and if you aren’t well enough to strike the killing blow it makes sense to leave you out as a tasty morsel and hope Walker is as good as his attitude suggests. 

What are the things you can use to kill a demon? Fire, blood, ancestral bone. Pitch tar and green herbs to bind them to the earth, salt to burst their cells. It doesn’t follow any scheme you’ve come across in your research, but it makes a strange sort of sense. And since you don’t have any bones to grind, it’s at least worth a shot. Either it works, or Walker will have some interesting new notes to add to his little book. So it’s a win-win for him. He doesn’t seem overly concerned by any of this, packing documents away and sorting through his duffel. Your own supplies are a bit thin; after all, you were supposed to be on vacation, for fuck’s sake. You realize how stupid it sounds the instant it leaves your mouth, even before his eyebrow crawls up into his hairline. He simply snorts, “ _vacation_ ,” before turning back to his things. 

There’s a little fishing shack on the beach close to the cliffs. There should be plenty of time to get there and set up before nightfall, before Weber emerges to feed. And if he smells you there, then he’ll just be drawn to you like flies to shit. 

“This’ll be fun,” Walker says as he’s heading out the door. He doesn’t look back and you don’t call out to him, and if you’re slow to catch up, well, at least you’re walking still.


	4. I See How you Are

You can’t yet lift your arms high enough to stand spread-eagle like you’ve done before. In time your shoulders will heal; already they hurt less, and you’re grateful to Walker for putting your shoulders back into their sockets while you were out. It’s a gift, that moment when you _could_ have had pain but _didn’t._

There’s some time for you to just wait, sitting cross-legged in the center of a warding hidden under sand and leaves. He’s cut you already, collecting blood in a cup to scatter across the floor and over the threshold, building layers of attraction and binding, honey and glue. The poison in your veins rises at the smell of blood, scattering your wits and sharpening your teeth. It grows more difficult each time, harder and harder to keep that part of yourself contained. It would feel so good to just let it out, to take Walker by the throat and pull him from his hiding place, to tear and bite—

“Easy.” His voice in the shadows cuts through your spiraling thoughts. It pulls your focus along with a sudden surge of anger that has to be from the poison, it’s so unlike you. _Don’t say relax, don’t say relax, don’t—_

“It’s okay. You can think about it, I know you want to. I think about it too, just—“ He cuts off, silent, listening, the glint of his eyes disappearing as he turns. 

Weber is hesitant as he crosses the threshold. He’s wary, should know better than to fall for this, but his meal just up and left and now he is _hungry._ His steps describe a slow circle around the edges of the wards as you breathe shallowly through your mouth and try not to scream. He takes a step forward, two steps, before he feels the trap close around him. He is not well pleased and his roar tears thick and sticky from his throat. He lunges for you and you scramble back, ass digging trails through the sand on the floor. Weber’s got you, he’s chewing on your fucking boot, before Walker’s shot rips through his chest and does...absolutely nothing. 

There’s quite a lot of screaming then, Weber with anger, Walker with possibly _more_ anger, and you’re just tonelessly yelling as you try to find a weapon or _something._ You grab a fishing net and though it strains your shoulders, you manage to throw it over Weber so he goes down in a tangle. Then Walker’s got his knife out and there’s blood just everywhere. It’s loud, it’s chaotic, but when the poison rises in your blood, when fragments of dormant ash spring to life and rip through your veins, everything else falls away. 

In the end, Walker’s covered in blood up to his eyes and you’re probably not much better. Nothing hurts anymore; god, you feel _good._ Your mouth tastes funny; must’ve gotten a split lip or something during the fight. Except Walker’s approaching slowly, arms outstretched, and he’s saying something but the words slide in and out of your mind. “better— _Christ,_ sit down, don’t you— okay, there you go. First one’s always the hardest.” 

And that’s not right; you’ve killed demons before. He knows this; that’s what he means, right? It has to be. He’s gathering pieces of Weber in a pile outside, dousing them in boat fuel, standing back to watch them burn. From your vantage point on the floor you see him framed in the doorway, somehow even more massive than before. And it must be a trick of the light, _must_ be, because when he turns to look at you his eyes seem to glow. 

He sees you looking, sees the slowly dawning horror, because it can’t be true, it just _can’t._ But Walker’s eyes are pale and strange in the firelight and you feel ash still burning in your veins. The fire burns until it is only embers, and under cover of darkness he begins to speak. 

He isn’t a demon, not exactly. There isn’t a fucking manual for this, it’s all trial and error and a chance encounter in the Paris sewers, a bite and tear and a burst of flame across his face, a sudden, sharp course correction from a plan that would’ve gotten him killed, a plan that makes your skin crawl even in its most stripped-down details. It’s difficult, reconciling the man who claims he tried to burn down the world with the man who held you in the night to stop your screams. And it could also be just some bullshit story he’s spinning to make your current disastrous situation seem more manageable. Because you’re hanging onto composure by a thread, your mouth still full of that rotten copper taste and you’re pretty sure there are bits of Weber in your teeth. 

At least he’s got you walking now, slowly making your way back to the hotel, and the whole time he’s talking quietly, sharing just enough that you know it’s only a fraction of what’s really happened to him. But his plan works, and by the time you reach the room your breathing is nearly back to normal, or as normal as it can get right now. The wounds and bloodloss make themselves known suddenly, ferociously. 

“What about Weber, when you shot him, why didn’t it work,” you’re asking, but you’re already sinking onto the bed, fumbling the knots of your chewed-up boots, already blinking heavily because _fuck_ has it been a day. “What about me, I don’t _understand—_ “

The adrenaline crash hits hard, pulls through your wounds and you are tired, suddenly, anemic and worn through, and you might sleep for a _week.  
_


	5. Each of These in Me

It’s the fucking bone ash that’s done it. It inoculated Weber, in the days he sipped and suckled from you, gave him weakness a drop at a time until he overcame it. And it’s pulled something otherworldly inside you, given you such _hunger._ Ash calls to blood, screams with the need to pull it into the memory of its gaping maw. Ash doesn’t know it’s dead, it just wants to _feed._ It sounds right, anyway, speculation murmured between sips of stale coffee while you map out your next moves and try not to make eye contact. Because Walker still has that wild and wanton look, and you probably aren’t much better. 

You could, if you wanted to. He would let you, would welcome you in, would command every breath and every movement. He would let you lodge yourself inside him, grip and hold and—

He’s staring. His mustache twitches like he’s trying not to smile. “Come with me,” he says. _Come with me,_ like he doesn’t exude that lone-wolf air, like he hasn’t done this for however long and come out of it just fine so far. 

But. 

That sense memory wriggles its way up through the burning in your blood, past the dark nights spent planning for your inevitable fall, past the letters you wrote begging for help in the days before you realized the list of people who could (would) help began and ended with you. The memory of being held is a light in the dark, faint but surely there. 

_The human eye can see a candle flame from a mile away._

Maybe, maybe, it’s time for you to accept that you can’t go it alone, not if you want to survive this. Not anymore. And if Walker’s reasons for offering are unknown, there is little in this world worse than what you’ve lived already. And it’s a bad idea, a _terrible_ idea; he is man and monster both, and you are lonely, desperate, becoming something you no longer understand. 

When you brush your hand against his it could be excused as an accident, could be written off and ignored as you went your separate ways. But your blood still burns, and you always did jump in with both feet. 

Why not. 

“Okay,” you say, and whatever that word unlocks, it’ll surely be a hell of a thing. 

“Okay.”


	6. Open Road Song

Your truck gets terrible mileage, but it’s worth it for times like these. Times when you’re in between towns and the night is dark and full of stars. When you spread your blankets in the back of the truck and pillow your hands behind your head, when you’re warm and well-fed and maybe a little drunk. 

When you turn your head to see Walker beside you, eyes strange in the starlight. He watches with the sharp-eyed stare of a predator, and he would watch you like that even without the strangeness burning inside him, even without the way he scents your blood on the air like it calls to him. 

Because, god, even though the burn of bone ash in your blood is fading, you’ll never quite be free of it, will you? You’ll always have that little extra vicious edge in every fight; you’ll always crave the burst of veins between your teeth. But you’re managing, somehow. 

Walker knows how it is. He knows the feeling of needing to rend and tear, and so he never says _don’t._ He only says _wait,_ and that’s enough. He says _first make sure,_ and sometimes it’s worth it but most of the time it’s not. And when the haze of the fight recedes you’re glad of him, glad of his hand that presses steady at your elbow, a touch that says _I’ll back you, whatever you decide._ And as the weeks drag into months, as you both grow beards and begin to layer your flannels, you find that when you press against _him_ in return, he doesn’t pull away. He translates your clumsy touches into what you’re not sure how to ask for because the memory of a kind hand is so very far away. 

Yeah, you’re drifting, and it’s nice. Soon the autumn chill will make nights like these unbearable, but for now you are soft with it, with the smells of scrub willows and meadowgrass that rose up when the dew fell. He watches you, sharply, silver threads in his beard where the scar creeps down underneath, eyes pale and sparking with appraisal, with caution, with _interest._

_Well._

And now, when you reach a hand to him, it’s a little more than just _here I am._ You wind a hand into his curls, grown overlong, and when you tug he flows over you like water, subsumes you beneath the warm weight of his massive frame. 

“Under the stars, huh? Should’ve known you were a romantic.” His voice is rich and honeyed, tinged with affection that he’ll never admit to, at least not out loud. And yeah, you are; it goes hand-in-hand with your almost pathological need to help people, even now. With your both-feet approach to trouble, with your—

“Hey. Hey, with me, alright? It’s only you and me here,” as he’s leaning down to taste the copper that never seems to leave your tongue, as your arms and hands tangle and bump together where you try so desperately to be out of your jeans _now,_ while he’s shoving his own pants down his thighs, til he can pet at you with a spit-slicked palm, not nearly wet enough and so he draws back, sucks you down to the root like it’s nothing and it’s _not_ nothing; his eyes are wet when he pulls off to lick at the crease of your hip, to make you everywhere wet and sloppy. He hisses and groans as he slots himself against your hip, as he’s guiding your own hand on you just right. It’s awkward, messy and obscene; it shouldn’t work but it _really, really works._ When you chase him over the edge it’s with a drawn-out groan like a punch to the gut; you slide slippery through the mess for a little longer just to feel it, until it becomes too much. 

And there he is, sticky and panting, reaching for a corner of the blanket to wipe away the worst of the mess. It’ll crust into your hair and it will itch, but he’s speaking again and it doesn’t matter. 

“Next time. Next time, somewhere with a bed. I’ll want you to fuck me _properly_.” 

And yeah, that. That sounds really goddamned good.


	7. All the Days I’m Alive

Someday you will die. Maybe it’ll be in a blaze of glory, fighting the good fight. Standing for something. Maybe you’ll get very, very lucky and it’ll be old age that gets you. 

“Don’t count on it. Men like us, we don’t get to grow old.” 

Yeah, he’s probably right. Aging is a privilege afforded to people who are not you, and you’re a little bitter about it, sure, but those people haven’t been given the gift of these long nights with Walker’s hand curled warm around you, his arm across your belly a protective bar that might as well scream out _mine_ in neon letters. It’s sappy and it’s stupid, looking for softness in him; he’s all muscle and sinew and finely-tuned rage. Even at your best he’s probably better; he has the ability to be cruel and that’s something you lack, something that makes your kills hard and the recovery harder, has you shaking once the red recedes from your vision and you’re left with the aftermath of the fight. 

Like now, as you’re sewing a long line up his thigh, courtesy of some nasty demon with a knife and a ferocious right hook, someone fresh enough he hadn’t even chosen a name yet. Your cheek throbs with the memory of the fight. And as you lean over Walker to keep his legs still, you feel him throb in kind, hard and hungry like he so often gets afterward. 

“Well, here we are,” he says. His smile is like cracking ice. And _of course_ he picks now to make a move. Now, when he can blame it all on the adrenaline, so if this fucks everything up between you it’ll be easy enough to say _just the thrill of the fight, it’s nothing, never happened, never mind._ And you may be sweet, may be all-in with most everything, but you’re 

“not stupid, _August._ You said properly, remember?” He does remember, his words coming back to him across dark nights full of stars. He’s not angry, but there’s something else there. You get the sense he’s never had to think about sex in this way before. Never had to worry about the potential emotional fallout, the recalibration of a relationship. Never been with anyone long enough to go from _anything_ to lovers. It bites at you, this realization, this understanding that very probably he’s never had a _relationship_ before. Not like the kind you know, anyway. 

Maybe he doesn’t get it, then. Maybe for all his smooth predatory possessiveness, he’s completely fucking lost when it comes to this. To _caring_ about the impact he has on someone beyond the effect on the mission. That’s— it’s kinda sad, actually. It makes something clench in the center of your chest. 

“Listen.” You’re bandaging his thigh now, sitting between his shins on the bed. “It means exactly what we want it to mean. All of it. And it’s not like we’re not— intimate, I guess.” That’s a cringe, the awkwardness of that phrase. “You know how often I think about fucking you when I jerk off? Because it’s a _lot._ ” 

That has his interest, puffs him up a little. It pulls the conversation back onto familiar ground and his smile becomes less brittle and more hungry. “Tell me about it,” he says as he begins to stroke himself, slow and firm to savor the grip and drag of his dry hand. It must chafe, but he must _like_ it because he keeps _doing_ it. “Tell me,” he says again, brushing his thumb over the head in just the right way to make his hips lift entirely off the bed, “tell me exactly what you’re gonna do to me.”

And you do, in a voice rough with lust, a little hesitant because doing is one thing but talking about it is another, but you peel the words away and let them fall. Walker listens sharply, filing everything away for later. And when the words stick in your throat, you pry his hand loose and press it to the mattress and he lets you; when you swallow him down it’s with your other hand down at the base of him so you don’t have as far to go, and he doesn’t say a thing about it but he watches you with eyes bright like stars.


	8. By Daybreak

There’s never going to be a perfect time. There’s never gonna be a night when one of you isn’t nursing a wound or rubbing soreness from an old ache. There’s never gonna be a perfect time, but there doesn’t need to be. And once you realize that, once you understand that if you want it you should _take_ it because you might die tomorrow, then it becomes so much easier. 

Like this thing with August. Not Walker anymore— once you’ve sucked a man’s cock, that’s first-name stuff right there. And you’ve been _Evan_ to him for a while now, since— _jesus,_ since Toulomne. Days after you’d kissed him, when you could still taste him if you concentrated hard enough. When you’d stood watching the trout jump and caught his mind wandering, watching the winter’s first snow fall into the stream. It feels like it should mean something, and as you’re driving through the dark you try to think back, to remember when things between you started to change. 

_They can’t see you in the rain._ Yeah, August, but it was snow caught in your beard, snow falling all around you, snow that cooled the burning in your veins. 

It felt like some great secret, even if the words themselves were mundane. _I went fishing here once._ He seemed...wistful, almost. 

And now. 

“We should stop for the night.” He looks over sharply at that, and he almost asks you about it but when the streetlights flash over your face he sees it, he _has_ to, the way you glance over and bite your lip like this is fucking high school again and you’re taking Mary Hobart home after the prom. 

_I was never any good at fishing. They’d come so close, nearly take the bait. And then I’d move, or something, and they’d swim away._

The room is small and a little worn down but the bed’s clean and the shower is big enough for two. And you’ve thought about this, with your hand flying furiously over yourself. Thought about how he’d feel opening for you, about all the different possible positions and maneuvers, about whether you’d be able to look him in the eye when you pressed inside, or whether he’d want your teeth at the nape of his neck. Whether he’d scream or moan or stay silent. You’ve thought about it a _lot_ since he brought it up. 

And somehow, it’s even _more_ than you imagined. He’s huge, spread out, taking up far too much space, taking up all your attention as he strokes himself with a slick hand, as he hooks an ankle over your hip, tugging you closer. He’s impatient, frowning a little. “C’mon. Come on.” A little softer. “You won’t hurt me any more than I want you to.”

You’re two fingers deep and he’s pressing himself down onto you, focused and greedy and if that isn’t just _him._ And he’s practically all lube from the waist down where you spilled it in your eagerness; the sound of you working him open is deliciously obscene, wet and squelching in concert with his hand on his cock. The hand pressing against the back of his thigh slips, jars your whole body, digs your fingers into him in a way that surprises him and makes him gasp. 

“ _Fuck._ Give me three fingers. _Now._ And do that again.” And yeah. Okay. _Okay._ More fingers. More pressing in, seeking out— _there._ Working him open, making him see fucking stars because _you’re a hopeless fucking romantic, Evan._ Not slicking your cock, not even touching it until he swears he’ll “kill you if you don’t get in me right fucking _now_.”

And so you do; it’s slow and careful and slick until he pulls you in with his heel digging into the cleft of your ass and you’re _there,_ you’re gasping through sensation, yes, warm and tight and good, but it’s. It’s _him_ and this means something, despite all your reassurances that it doesn’t have to. 

There’s no way you’re going to last, not like this, not with the way he somehow undulates his entire body to get you deeper, not with the way he watches you unblinking, eyes dark, like he’s fixing this in his mind somehow. He’s there with you, fisting his cock, mouth falling open just a touch, just enough to see those sharp teeth. Just enough to let out a soft little _unh_ when you fuck into him exactly right. 

And somehow he is predatory like this, even now, even splattering his belly with come, even taking you into himself, he _watches._ And you'd feel insulted at that stare if you didn’t know him, how the tiny lines that furrow at the corners of his eyes are as good as a scream. And this is him with a soft and wondering _oh_ slipping out, burying itself in your ear and that’s _it,_ it’s all over, it’s a sudden whole-body tightness as you pulse inside him, as something in you roars for blood, for ownership, and is satisfied. 

And it’s good, isn’t it, the way he touches your elbow as he’s following you into the shower, the warm bulk of him, still damp, sliding into the bed behind you, the solid comfort of his arm on your belly. It’s good, it’s so goddamn good, and if only. If only it could last. But

_men like us_

you fight through dark and pain and weariness, trying to carve out a little light. You try to make the world a little better, each of you in your own way. And it’s unfair, it really is, because you’re coming to realize that even if you want comfort, deserve it, sometimes even get it, it probably won’t last. 

_we don’t get to grow old._


	9. Your Share of Devils

If you knew you had only one more day to live, only twenty four brief hours until the breath froze in your lungs, would you spend those hours any differently? Would you weep and sigh and waste the day until the sun went down? Would you lie in bed trying for lazy and comfortable but achieving only fear?

You would probably spend the day in exactly the same way. 

An extra shower just for the pure hedonistic pleasure of it. Bumping elbows with August as you reach around him for the soap, kneading the tightness from his lower back with slippery hands. 

Gulping down terrible motel coffee wrapped in just your towel, scarred and gleaming. Both of you have so many scars. Like old lions preparing for the hunt, you talk and plan and move around each other in an easy way. A familiar way. 

It’s been a year now, or nearly so. You know he realizes, but you wonder if he cares, if August marks time in the same way that you do. And he’s hardly the type to say _penny for your thoughts_ but he looks at you a little long and makes a soft _hn?_ at the back of his throat. 

“I feel weird about this one. About Hurst. I dunno. It’s probably nothing.” But it isn’t nothing, gut feelings are never nothing, not now. You can’t afford to ignore them. You know, and August knows, and so does Hurst when he tears into you. 

But that’s a problem for tomorrow. For today, you plan. Your maps are spread out across the table in the kitchenette, topography and highway, lines traced from demon to demon. More than nine, many more than nine, but so many of them still fresh, still fledglings. Still barely more than men. And it’s not good, all these new demons popping up seemingly out of nowhere. It shouldn’t be happening, and it adds a little more grey to your hair when you think about it. 

There’s no one you can ask, no one left who would even take you seriously. You’d killed four before Weber, and a dozen more since then. Doesn’t make sense. And you’d thought maybe. Maybe after the last one was burned, if you were both still standing, you could retire somewhere quiet. Somewhere you could rest, take some time to let the taste of blood fade from your tongue. 

“We should cut your wards again.” He’s watching you with what could almost be worry, that line furrowed between his brows. “If it feels weird, something’s wrong. Can’t put this one off, but I want you as safe as I can get you.” It’s as close as he’s ever come to saying it. 

“And you?” Because he has that strangeness in him, but he’s still as vulnerable to a bite as you are. Still can be hurt like any other man, and if he heals quick (too quick, body laying scars like it’s impatient, knitting skin messy and gnarled, just look at his knuckles, his _face_ ) he can still bleed out like anybody else. 

And there’s that _hmm_ again, soft and thoughtful. “We‘ll both do it. Bait won’t smell as good, but we can’t take the risk.” He hasn’t laid wards on himself before, hasn’t made the cuts to keep demons’ teeth out of his neck, but now. Because you’re _worried._

You cut him first, carving lines into his chest amidst the scars there, some silvery with age, some new, barely past scabs. You lay his wards and he hisses a little, but he _also_ lays a hand over yours, pulling you along slow and steady with the knife. He grits his teeth and takes it, and when you’re finished he just breathes a moment, pulls the sting of his cuts back into himself, making it just a little background noise at the edge of his mind. 

It’s a little harder for you, bearing pain, especially when you know it’s coming. But when he takes the blade, now clean and shining, and cuts over the scarred lines on your chest, his other hand is firm and soothing with a thumb stroking at your collarbone, with a minute tightening of fingers around your shoulder. It’s a grounding point, it’s comfort, it’s “almost done. Keep still, that’s good.”

When it’s finished, there’s no change in how you feel aside from the sting of your cuts, and though you expect it, it still feels wrong. It seems as though there should be some sort of closing-door feeling, some sensation of armor forming up beneath your skin. But just like before, it’s all just _you_ in there, you and the dregs of ash that spark like broken glass in your blood. 

And here you are, waiting for night, side by side, wrapped up in a tense anticipation that vibrates between you like wires pulled taut, harsh and jangling.


	10. All I Do is Mean It

This is an absolute, unmitigated disaster, and you are going to die. For one, it doesn’t matter that you’re wearing fresh protection sigils, still tacky with blood and lymph, sticking to the inside of your shirt. Those only work to keep demons from drinking your blood. They don’t do much against claws, against knives, against terrible strength that flings you through walls. And Hurst doesn’t want to drink your blood; he wants to tear you to shreds. 

It’s not quite how you’d figured on dying, but it’s close. The only difference is, Walker watches with his eyes wide and helpless, clouding over as his air drains away, as the oxygen in his blood trades over for carbon dioxide and his mouth is working but there’s no sound. He’s taking heaving breaths, or trying to, but that’s _got_ to be a collapsed lung and he’s running out of time. 

_His fingers on your wrist. “Here. Take this. Might need it.” A knife, his knife, short and serrated and wicked._

And you? Well. If you could move you’d have to overcome the shocky, crawling feeling of your skin trying to pull itself right off your body and down your throat. You’d have to dig a hand into the wound at your side, drag yourself to Walker where he writhes, his legs broken and hands clutching helplessly at the floorboards. 

_Trout jumping in the stream. “I moved and they saw me.”_

None of this should be happening. Even though dying is inevitable in your line of work, it’s so _fucking_ unfair. But fairness doesn’t enter into it, does it? You live for a while, then you die. Violently. 

_We don’t get to grow old._

_The last rays of light casting long warm lines across your face, blinding you with orange warmth. Bumping shoulders with August as you unpack your tools. Lines drawn on the floor in chalk, in pine tar, in blood._

_“Will you miss me when I’m gone?” Sarcastic, smirking, but you know him now._

Hurst is dead, in pieces, slowly leaching into the earth through gaps in the pine boards, the cabin parting itself around him, trying to withdraw from something terrible. A few lucky shots and a few skilled ones and you had him, but he’s a wounded animal and in his dying fury he struck at you, pierced your side with shards from the cabin wall even as the lintel fell and pinned August there, just out of reach. 

_You can help him. You know how. But you’ve gotta move._ You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, but there’s a little gush of blood with every inch as you drag yourself across the floor, even with your fingers pressing into the wound, holding yourself together. 

_You’ll be fine_ as you’re feeling between his ribs with trembling fingers, as he tries to speak with his lips turning blue, with your blood seeping warm over him as you ready the knife. _Hold on. I’ve just gotta—_

_Ah._ There’s a rush of air, August’s cheeks pinking. His eyes are tight, pupils pinprick-tiny, and he hurts— so badly— but he has air and you can go from there. You can—

Oh, that’s a lot of blood. He wears your red like a funeral shroud, smearing it all over as he struggles to get out from under the lintel, gritting his teeth when he moves his legs. And you’re trying to help him still, even as your vision is greying around the edges. Even as he’s gritting out “fuck, Evan, sit _down._ You can’t—“

He wriggles out around the time your body gives out _anyway,_ and what a joke, looks like you’ll be leaving him the same way you met, bleeding out in the dark. 

_“Hey. Come on. We’ve gotta go.”_ And you do go, down into the dark and quiet, down where everything hurts but it fades away little by little. There’s a harsh breath, a touch at your temple, and then nothing.


	11. Falling as Rain

Everything hurts and you’re dying. And it’s true until it isn’t. Until, simply, everything hurts. Until August is there at your bedside, sitting in a hardbacked chair with pins through his legs. And he misses it, that moment when your eyes open, but at the tiny _scritch_ of your palm against coarse white sheets, his gaze is fixed on you. And there’s that tiny twitch of his face, the most minute crack in his expression that hints at something shining underneath. 

_It’ll be a long road. He’ll limp for a long time, maybe forever, and he’ll struggle through exercises meant to build him back up; he’ll curse and growl and let you massage the stiffness from his legs._

“Guess we made it.”

_The bone ash reacts with the blood they give you and you’re nearly lost; the reaction is undetectable in testing but it makes you hemorrhage on the table. You’re weak and shaking. Anemic. Ghost-white. When the sun slants through the blinds it burns your eyes._

“Guess we did.”

_And yet. You’re alive. Somehow._

More or less. 

_And later. Later. One day the sun creeps over the horizon and you’re there in your truck, blankets in the back, frost in your hair. You stretch, and yawn, and rise to meet the day. And there’s a soft_ hnn _in your ear, and a warm, solid arm that tightens across your belly._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. This has been a journey. I put down the first words on August 7, 2020 and finished this three months later. Feels like a lifetime.


End file.
